Laundry treating appliances, such as vertical axis washing machines, typically include a cabinet, a tub in the interior of the cabinet, and a rotatable wash basket mounted in the tub that receives laundry for treatment according to a cycle of operation. The tub may suspend from the cabinet, and may be supported by one or more suspension systems.
During the operation of the vertical axis washing machine with the suspended tub, the laundry load may be limited by the wash basket size, which is limited by the adjacent suspending tub. In case the laundry is non-uniformly distributed in the wash basket, an unbalance during the rotation of the wash basket may cause it to deviate off an anticipated rotational orbit, and in extreme cases induce collisions between the wash basket and the tub and/or the tub and the cabinet, based upon the selected basket/tub/cabinet design, such that spin extraction efficiency may be limited. Prior solutions have focused on predicting imbalances, altering the rotation, and applying rebalancers or counterbalancers.
Alternatively, vertical axis washing machines may have a static, or fixed, tub attached to the cabinet. The rotatable wash basket may be intercoupled with a rotatable drive shaft, a drive motor, a drive shaft bearing assembly, a transmission, and a support structure, all dynamically isolated from the tub. The support structure may be flexibly suspended from the tub, and may utilize a rubber boot to flexibly connect the support structure to the static tub. The rubber boot may seal wash liquid and vapor inside the washing machine to prevent leakage onto washing machine components and an adjacent support surface such as a floor, carpeting, and the like. While the static tub is beneficial in that it can aid in increasing the capacity of the washing machine, the wash liquid and vapor sealing apparatus may be more costly than non-static tub washing machines. Moreover, the wash liquid and vapor sealing apparatus may also be difficult to incorporate into washing machine components, may have a shorter life cycle than the non-static tub washing machines, and may also interact with the suspension systems, which may contribute to instability, vibration, and noise.